Joy
by Arizo
Summary: Tears rolled down Harley's cheeks, and she covered her eyes with her hands. Yet, she could still see the little pink plus sign, maybe it had been taped to the back of her eyelids? In the back of her mind, she wondered how much her make-up was smearing.


Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this story, aside from the plot. Last time I checked, all the characters in this story belonged to DC Comics.

**Enjoy!**

The newly risen sun cast a rose-tint upon Gotham, gently waking the cities occupants. This was not this that woke Harley Quinn from her slumber. Awakening brought the usual of nausea that had been coming to her every morning, for the past nine days. Just nausea, then vomiting a couple of times in the toilet, and she was better. The former psychiatrist closed her eyes and breathed in and out several times in the hope it would pass, that was just indigestion. No such luck, Harley stumbled out of bed into the bathroom, where she emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet.

The blonde clown-girl blinked back the tears that filled her eyes, and wiped her mouth on the back of her arm. She got to her feet, filled a cup with water and rinsed her mouth out. 'Thank goodness Mistah J's been gettin' up real early to do whatevah he's ah doin,' Harley thought, not bothering to blink back to tears in her eyes now. After brushing, 'scrubbing' was perhaps a better word, her teeth with blueberry, then strawberry, then going back and forth between blueberry and blackberry three times, and finishing off with a nice raspberry toothpaste. Harley got in the shower still dressed, and didn't realize until half-way through her washing her hair with pineapple shampoo for the fourth time.

"Gee Harley-girl you really need to gettta gripah, Puddin won't like it if you don't," Harley told her herself firmly. The clown girl sank to the floor, and buried her face in her hands. This could not be happening. Actually it had every possibility of happening, she and Mistah J did the big nasty three times a day on a bad day, five times a day on an average day, and nine times a day on a good day. She was not on birth control, and the Joker had never used a condom.

"But I'm not late," Harley tried to console herself, "M-my cycle comes...oh I guess I am late."

Exactly a month late to the date in fact, Harley checked after she'd finished showering. Yet still as it is with all women who wish to be in denial, Harley refused to even let the possibility that she was pregnant go through her thoughts. Determinedly thinking all through getting dressed, that it was just a coincidence, like she was just skipping this month. Then remembered she had never been late or skipped a month since her bleedings had started. Therefore, promptly, found another excuse; it was because of all the exercise she'd been getting.

"Athletic-girls don't get their period's monthly right," Harley told herself, vaguely re-calling hearing her teacher drone on and on about that in health class, as she pulled on knee-high, six-inch, black leather boots.

"Just like there is a perfectly logical explanation for why I've been throwing up…it's because of all the junk food I've been eatin' yep that's right I have food poisoning," she told her herself, now donning a black wig. She chose to ignore the fact that her stomach was stronger than a birds, and she could drink poison if need be, and live.

"I'll just go out get some breakfastah and I do the shoppin' I need tah do, and aftah that go ovah to the drug store buy a whole bunchah junk food, drinks, and-and ah pregnancy test, and that'll be puttin' myah mind atah rest," she chatted away happily at herself, all while putting the finishing touches on the twenty-three layers of make-up she wore. She didn't use to talk to herself; it was a habit that started after she'd met Mistah J. Oh how lucky she was to have met him.

"No reason tah worry myah little head about silly stuff," Harley continued to tell herself, while she strapped a knife to her leg under her skirt, placed a gun into the pocket of her jacket, and tucked her wallet, and car keys into the other pocket of her jacket.

"Plus I'll go on birth control so nothin' likah this can evah happen again," Harley finished consoling herself, as the clown-girl made her way through the abandoned hotel that was their current hide-out and into her car.

From the hide-out it took her fifty-three minutes to reach the diner where she'd been having breakfast at a lot recently, due to their yummy pancakes. It probably wouldn't have taken so long if she hadn't crashed the car, into a bus.

Not damaged, unless you counted a few scratches, and she got worse in bed, Harley skipped away from the accident, and took a cab back to the hide-out to get another car. The poor cab driver wound up staring in one of starring in one of the Joker's home-videos.

This Harley found out half-way through her three dozen blue-berry pancakes, five bacon-ommelettes, four dozen stacks of chocolate-chip pancakes, nine sausage patties, and 19 strips of bacon. 'Puddin is so nice tah me, he appears on TV screen and entahtains me with funny lectures aboutah cab drivahs' Harley thought resting her head on her hand.

While the Joker explained to the citizens of Gotham that cab drivers were very important, he just wouldn't tell them why they were important. However, whatever happened to the poor cab driver Harley never found out because half-way through the Joker explaining to the citizens of Gotham that if Joanne Grover, the seven year old daughter of one of the secretaries who worked in the district attorney's office was not on, well before she could hear where Joanne Grove was supposed to go and what would happen to the cab driver if Joanne Grover wasn't there…Harley left the premises.

On the way to the shopping center; Harley crashed her car again, this time into a hot dog stand. Therefore, she hijacked the hot dogs owner's motorcycle and drove back to the hide-out to get another car. In an attempt to save another cab driver, from the fate that had become the last cab driver. She was followed by the hot dog stand's owner who had hijacked the hamburger stand's owner's motorcycle. This resulted in the owner of the hot dog stand being in the Joker's second home-movie of the day that day. He seemed to be doing a special on people who did who did random, crappy jobs. And thus Harley failed to save, a life.

When she finally got to the shopping center Harley bought thirty-one new silver sparkly dresses; five green, eight purple, ten purple and green, two black, four red, and two red and black. Then at "The Place Where You Buy Things for Hot Nights" (Actually, it wasn't called that, Harley didn't know what it was called but "Where you Buy Things for Hot Nights" was her special name for it) fifty-two new sets of lingerie; and eighty-five new pairs of underwear. Harley finished her shopping for the day by buying a mink coat.

Then, once Harley was outside she realized that since it was summer she really didn't need a big coat so she gave it to a beggar woman outside the shopping center. This caused the woman to stare at Harley for several seconds, before running off to the nearest pawn shop.

Luckily for people who did crappy jobs, Harley didn't crash her car into anything on her way to the super-market. The previous evening the Joker had given her a list of all the food they needed.

"Okay so I need fifteen bags of potato chips, shish ka bobs thirty-five beef, thirty-nine chicken, and twenty-seven lamb, fifteen gallons of milk, all the snacks from the snack aisle, forty liters of Pepsi, twenty liters Dr. Pepper, fifteen gallons of Sprite, thirty-three liters of Orange-Soda, and fourteen litters of Sierra Mist…and a pregnancy test…except that's not on the list….Oooh along with birth control pills."

Shopping would have taken a lot less time had Harley not grabbed everything she saw that was yummy, along with the with the products on the list. At the aisle that held pregnancy tests Harley grabbed every different type of brand there was, and five of the most expensive kind.

As she left the grocery store an alarm went off, and Harley realized she'd forgotten to pay. Therefore, she freaked out and ran to her car while the security guards ignored the guilty faced prostitute look-alike and ascended on an old granny. Meanwhile, Harley had forgotten where she'd parked, and so she hijacked a taxi cab (the taxi driver was asleep in the back) and drove off. Which meant that she'd lost…all of the clothes she'd bought earlier.

While Harley did manage to cause eleven other people to crash on her way back to the hide-out, she herself didn't crash. Until she got back to the warehouse that is, where she ran over Patches, one of the new guys, while attempting to avoid Spot another one of the new guys. Lately the Joker had taken to naming his goons, like one would name a pet dog.

"Miss Quinn, is Patches still alive?" Husky, yet another one of the new guys who really did look like a Husky, asked.

"Hmm, ah I squashed his legs well justah shoot im' best ta put im outta is misery," said Harley "Oooh Spot take the groceries inside tah tweeters kay."

Tweeters had joined the Joker's ranks while he was going through his 'naming goons after pet birds' phase. While Spot did as he was told, Harley grabbed her personal items, said personal items being the pregnancy tests, ten of the two-litters of soda bottles, and all the spicy, and salty snacks there were. Then ran upstairs and locked herself in her, and Mistah J's room.

After turning on the TV, she pulled off her boots and curled up on the bed, where she started chugging a two litter bottle of Pepsi. 'Hmm, Mistah J…..hasn't done anything big recently….wonder why that is….or where he is for that matter' Harley thought, glancing anxiously around the room.

The question of where the Joker was however was answered by flipping the channel. He was currently holding up Gotham Tonight. Thanks to the large amount of TV cameras the Joker's doing was being filmed live.

His stage was the eleventh floor main office room. (When I say main office room I mean the room that has all of the cubicles in them) Three dozen employees knelt on the ground in a circle, tied to several cans of explosion-like stuff. Several feet away several school children on their eighth grade field trip to Gotham Tonight Reporting…Place were seated on the ground while the Joker gave them a lecture on the evils of smoking.

"Now these young uh children have their uh whole lives ahead of them." The Joker said "And their lives won't be uh much longer with all you adults-ah smoking all the time. Or if the uh new D.A. doesn't send over his pretty new secretary Chloe Smoke within the next thirty minutes."

Harley tore the meat off several hot-hot chicken wings, then chugged another liter of soda. She could feel the pressure beginning to build in her bladder. Grabbing one of the pregnancy tests, she ran to the bathroom.

"Coincidence," Harley said firmly, dropping the red plus marked little pregnancy test into the trash, along with the scraps of the box. "I'm only pregnant if all of these say so."

An hour later, empty soda cans and empty food containers lay all over the bed and floor. The TV was now showing the Joker walking around Chloe Smoke, then deciding that it was boring she'd come so he tossed her out the window. "She is a kindred spirit, willing to give up her life to save children." He informed the viewers of Gotham Tonight, or well the whole city because everyone was watching the scene, at Gotham Tonight with baited breathe. "And I have set her free…" Here the Joker realized that tossing her out of an eleven story building would kill her. "Oh," he said surveying the damage on the street below. "Oops!" He said, surveying the body on the street people, and then started giggling about something, irrelevant.

None of this however, Harley Quinn saw. Harley Quinn was curled up in the bathtub, crying. "I'm having a baby." She whispered, "I'm having a baby. All of the tests say I'm having a baby, so I'm having a baby."

What could she do? Where could she go? There were those three possibilities for when one had an unplanned pregnancy. She knew, she'd been pregnant before in highschool, thanks to one night of hard drinking. Her parents had gotten her an abortion.

"You're a smart girl Harley; you made a mistake and look what comes from your mistakes. See, you got knocked up, now you know to always listen to us. Otherwise bad things happen to you." She'd understood, then. Then she'd just wanted the problem to go away then.

Only, this wasn't some unwanted baby. True it was a slight problem but…she could never kill this baby. This baby that was even now growing inside her: was Mistah J's baby. Never could she hurt any part of Mistah J, and this was his baby. She'd never wanted a baby but this wasn't just a baby, this was Mistah J's baby. An abortion was out of the question.

Which left option two, have the child and put him/her up for adoption? And then option number three. Which was the keep the baby, and have a family; "I don't know what ta do. I don't know…I don't." Harley cried. She wanted to keep the baby, and have a family; Mistah J and her and their little boy…or girl. For a moment, she entertained the thought. A beautiful little boy, with Mistah J's pretty blonde hair, like how'd she'd seen it Arkham, and perhaps a few streaks of green. Mistah J would be sitting there, reading a newspaper, with his feet, in colored socks, on the table. And she'd be, making brownies. But Mistah J had important stuff ta do now. He had to bring about chaos, and play with the Batman.

He couldn't be burdened with the worry, of her having a baby. He'd be worried so he'd just tell her to get rid of the baby; or get an abortion. Or just shoot her in the stomach, and then go find some whore who had enough sense to be on birth control. Harley knocked herself, on the side of the head, "Stupid," she whispered to herself. "I'm stupid." She'd have to keep the baby a secret, and then when she had the baby she'd tell him. And they'd keep the baby a secret until it was all grown up, and then…and then…the Joker's beautiful little baby…who help his daddy bring chaos to Gotham. But first…she'd need some place to hide until she had.

Harley got up, and packed a bag of clothes. "I'll go to Ivy's." She said happily. Ivy would be so happy, she was going to be an aunt.


End file.
